Kazans Justification For His Decision example essay topic

On the Waterfront is a classic, award-winning and controversial film. It received eight academy-awards in 1954, including best-picture and director. The director, Eliza Kazan, in collaboration with Budd Schulberg wrote the films screenplay. Based on actual dockside events in Hoboken, New Jersey, On the Waterfront is a story of a dock worker who tried to overthrow a corrupt union. Marlon Brando superbly portrays the character of Terry Malloy. He is a young ex-prize fighter, now a dock worker given easy jobs because his brother is the right-hand man of the corrupt union boss Johnny Friendly.

After Terry unwittingly allows himself to be used in setting up a mans death, he starts to question the basic assumptions if his life. This includes his loyalty to his brother and Johnny, who after all ordered him to take a dive in his big fight at Madison Square Garden. The films controversy exists in the fact that Terry decides to testify against Johnny Friendly. His testimony attempts to show how it is fundamentally right to break group silence in a tough situation, even if a person appears to rat on his friends. To be at peace with oneself, Kazan seems to say, one must tell the truth, despite the fact that one will face ostracism, and, as in the film, probably be murdered. Kazan makes the hardships of testifying painfully clear.

Thus, Brando character is a hero. However, a dark agenda exists behind the films plot. On the Waterfront was made in 1954, two years after Kazan willingly testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1952, Kazan named the names of eight friends and colleges allegedly affiliated with the communist party.

Kazan was an active member of the communist party in the 1930's, until he went through a violent break with the party prior to the hearings. He said that communism could override a persons intellect and beliefs. He also stated that Hollywood and Broadway heavily finance the party. Recounting his decision to testify, Kazan said, Communists were in a lot of organizations-unseen, unrecognized, unbeknownst to anybody.

I thought if I dont talk, nobody will know about it. On the Waterfront is Kazans justification for his decision to testify. In the film, when a union boss shouts, You ratted on us Terry, Brando shouts back: Maybe from where your standing, but Im standing over here now. I was rattin on myself all those years. I didnt even know it. That reflects Kazans belief that communism was an evil that temporal ity seduced him and it was necessary to oppose it.

Since Kazan believed that communism was an evil threat to the American way of life, he tried to portray his decision to testify as a heroic act of valor. He wanted to show the public that a person who testifies is brave, not a coward. Throughout the film there are a number of references to the code of silence, D n D, or Deaf and Dumb. This means that no matter how wretched the circumstances are, a person never rats. The union thugs make a joke about the boy pushed off a building because he threatened to talk to the crime commission, thus breaking the sacred code of D n D: A canary.

Maybe he could sing but he couldnt fly. Kazan has one character, in particular, stress the importance of speaking out in life. Father Barry believes that the truth will always set a person free. He says, Theres one thing weve got in this country and thats ways of fightin back. Gettin facts to the public. Testifying for what you know is right and what you know is wrong.

Whats rattin to them is telling the truth for you. Cant you see that Cant you see that This quotation is an example of Kazan crying out to the public for forgiveness. Later in the film, Kazan tries even harder to gain acceptance, as there is an obvious parallel between his own testimony and Terry Malloy. In the courtroom scene, Terry Malloy turns stool ie and betrays Friendly throughout his testimony. He tells the court that, on the night authorities discovered the body, someone pushed Joey Doyle from the roof. He states that he was the last person to see him alive, except for the two thugs that murdered him.

Terry testifies that, after the murder, he went immediately to the Friendly Bar, where he expressed his feelings about the murder to Mr. Friendly. Terry is a hero because he made it possible for honest men to work at the docks, with job security and peace of mind. However, Terrys struggle is just beginning. Friendly sums up Terrys supposed fate with one sentence, Youve just dug your own grave. After the trial, Terrys friends refuse to talk to him and he does not receive work. Neighborhood friend Tommy kills Terrys pet pigeons on the rooftop.

Tommy tosses the dead bird at Terry and shouts, A pigeon for a pigeon. People deride him and ostracize him as a canary. In interviews, Kazan discusses his identification with the Brando character. A lot of that kind of thing happened to me after I testified at HUA C", said Kazan.

I was snubbed. People I knew well would look at me but not talk. People looked down on me. They couldnt except the fact that correctly or incorrectly it was something I did out of principle. After the release of On the Waterfront, Kazan was open about his hidden motives, noble and shameful, to make the film.

The scene near the end of movie, when Terry shouts to Friendly, Youre a cheap, lousy, dirty stinkin mug. And Im glad what Ive done to you, disturbed some people. Critics interpreted this to mean that Kazan was not sorry for his severely damaging testimony. It appeared that he had no remorse for his actions.

For other viewers, the buried agenda of On the Waterfront tarnishes the picture. The critic John Rosenbaum told Roger Ebert that he could Never forgive Kazan for using the film to justify himself. In later years, Kazan did eventually have remorse for the people whose lives he ruined and the blemish his testimony left on the whole film industry. In his 1988 autobiography he says, I have some regrets about the human cost of it. One guy I told on I really like a lot. Twenty years later, unlike On the Waterfronts victorious ending, in Kazans picture The Visitor, a man also testifies against former friends; however, that movie ends on a note of despair.

Perhaps the words of a legendary character he helped to create, haunted Kazan. As Terry Malloy said, Conscience. That stuff can drive you nuts. 34d.